6 Benefits of Using Video in Your Social Media Strategy

More and more small businesses are discovering the power of online video and today, more than ever, companies are realizing that video has a key role to play in their content marketing strategy. Video has become one of the most highly shared content formats on the Internet, especially on social networks. According to a survey by Demand Metric and Ascend2, while the primary placement of videos was on the brand website (81%), videos were most effective in the second most popular placement location – sites such as YouTube and other social media platforms (26%). The brand website was in fact, found to be the second most effective distribution channel. Below we’ll talk about some of the benefits of using video in your social media strategy, rather than just your company website.

Brand Awareness

Gaining an audience for your videos will improve potential customers and prospects’ connection between your brand and the message you are wanting to address. For this reason, it is important to create a clear, relevant and entertaining story because video can increase brand association by 139%. People prefer to do business with those they like and trust, so putting a face to your brand helps prospects get to know your company more easily than ordinary words can. Incorporating video in your social media strategy serves to expand your brand’s reach, and thus, your audience’s awareness of it.

Lead Generation

Consumers that watch a video are more likely to purchase an offering than they are if no video is present and enjoyment of video ads increase purchase intent by 97%. When video content is strategically planned, produced and distributed for a particular audience, it is more likely to generate prospects that are invested in your message. One-minute of engaging video content can be very powerful to the right audience and increase the likelihood of a viewer following a call-to-action.

Online Engagement

Have you been on Facebook lately? Video has taken over and is the number one piece of content being shared daily. Also, 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text because short videos are fun to watch and easy to digest, compared to a wordy content. Those who view a video ad and find it interesting or valuable will share it with their friends and followers on any social media platform. In fact, more than 700 videos are shared by Twitter users every minute. This phenomenon can dramatically increase your video’s exposure. Users are more engaged with content shared by friends, and videos are heavily shared.

Improving SEO

People usually don’t spend too much time looking for content after clicking links on the first two pages of a search engine, so make sure your content is higher up and on the first page! According to Demand Metric’s Chief Analyst, Jerry Rackley, “Marketers should keep in mind that search engines will index properly tagged videos very well, and they often include an attention-grabbing thumbnail pane in the search results page.” This means the more videos your program produces, the higher your SEO rankings will become. Boost your SEO by added video to your social media strategy.

Video is measurable

Analytics are easily accessible, and are a great tool for evaluating how successful your videos are without the guesswork. Measurement can help you, your boss and your colleagues determine which videos and surrounding social media activities are leading to increased sales and moving your marketing in the right direction.

Video is cost-effective and lives forever

As long as you have a well-planned outline before producing a video, it can typically be used over and over. Not all content needs to be evergreen, because sometimes you have a specific audience, message, or idea to get across, but it’s especially cost-effective when they are. Videos stay online and in Google results for a long time and typically require an executive order to be removed. Unlike others ads that get taken down once you got your money’s worth, video content stays online, working for you and reducing your overall per-unit spending over time.

Have you seen benefits with your video marketing that we didn’t mention above? Let us know how you use video in your social media strategy in the comments section below!